Monday no longer the worst day of the week

Maligned ... Bob Geldof’s Boomtown Rats singled out Monday for special status but it turns out Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday are just as bad.

How miserable are you right now? It is Monday – a week of hard slog to come and two days of sunshine and lazy breakfasts behind you.

It is well accepted that people find Mondays the most depressing day of the week. Even Bob Geldof made his name singing about a schoolboy “going postal” in the Boomtown Rats’ anthem I Don’t Like Mondays.

But it is not true. And here’s the bad news: Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays are just as bad, according to research.

Obviously, the only good working day is the end of the week, when the weekend is a tantalising glimpse just around the corner.

According to a BBC report of research published in the Journal of Positive Psychology, a poll of 340,000 people the concept of “miserable Mondays” should be ditched.

“People reported more enjoyment and happiness and less stress or worry on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays compared with the rest of the week,” according to the report.

Professor Arthur Stone of Stony Brook University says it is the contrast in mood from Sunday to Monday that has led to Mondays being unfairly singled out.

Also rubbished is the concept of “Blue Monday”, known as the unhappiest day of the year. It falls on the Monday of the last full week of January.

This will be unhappy news for the team from counselling service Interactions, in Fife in the UK, which has offered a half-day course on how to help people cope with that day when they have a full year’s work ahead of them, the credit card bills come in and they have to deal with Britain’s lousy post-Christmas weather.

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